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If you live in New York and are sick of Lyft, Uber and taxi cabs, you're in luck. This week, ride-sharing app Via expanded its service to cover millions of more people in the city.
Previously, Via did not offer rides above 125th Street in Manhattan, and only included parts of Brooklyn. Now, the app covers the entire boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, all of Long Island City and is planning on expanding to all five boroughs in the “next few months,” according to a representative from the company. Via plans to progressively roll out service into new neighborhoods, which will be determined by votes from users.
Last June, Via teamed up with Curb, a taxi cab-hailing app, to give users more ways to hail a yellow cab in the city. The move was great news for cab drivers across the city, whose livelihoods have been disrupted by the surge in popularity of ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft in recent years.
One intriguing feature of Via is that the service aims to reduce traffic congestion by prompting users to meet their driver at an intersection rather than a specific address. Anyone who’s ever watched an Uber driver make three right turns on one-way streets to meet at a pickup point can attest to the usefulness of this functionality.
The expansion is but a small drop in the bucket when it comes to solving New York’s deep-rooted transit issues. But hey, if you live in Brooklyn and have been banned from both Uber and Lyft, it’s time to get back into the ride-sharing game, baby.
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